Global Warming | Business Upturn

India needs to spend 11% of its GDP to erase the carbon footprints by 2050: Report

Malvika Choudhary — Tue, 25 Jan 2022 16:46:17 +0000

India’s decarbonization action until now has been focusing on electrification (high share of renewables) and energy efficiency only. But the present crisis nudges for a far better approach to tackle the issue which besets India. The country will need an ambitious net-zero emissions building roadmap and target all new construction to be net-zero.

India has earmarked to lowering the emission intensity of its gross domestic product by 33-35% by 2030 and having 175-gigawatt renewable energy capacity by 2030 under the Paris Agreement of 2016. This can appear as a second wind on India to enhance its renewable commitment under the Paris deal with 450 GW by 2030 and phase out coal.

India will have to expand its spending to greater heights by going towards decarbonisation as a prime motive to fulfil the net-zero mark by 2050 and raise the spending to 11% of the GDP, according to a report by McKinsey.

According to the quantitative modelling executed on decarbonisation pathways for the Indian Economy, the GDP in 2050 is anticipated to be up by USD 406 billion in the net-zero scenario.

To decarbonise the electricity sector, India could follow the well-managed retirement of coal power plants and make significant investments in transmission and distribution infrastructure, and a doubling of storage capacity from BAU projections (450 GW by 2050).

India is now the fourth-largest emitter after China, the United States and the European Union, and as per IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report released on August 9, it will be among the most severely affected countries. Annual capital spending on physical assets in India would grow from around $300 billion in 2020 to an average of $600 billion between 2021 and 2050.

”India’s net-zero carbon emissions target of 2070 is momentous and praiseworthy, but highly ambitious to say the least,” an ORF statement said.

”India’s path to a prosperous low-carbon economy rests on three types of strategies: job creation in low-carbon industries, robust low-carbon economic growth, and peaking, and subsequently reducing, its GHG emissions in a way that does not disrupt development aspirations,” said Kelly Sims Gallagher, Professor and Academic Dean at The Fletcher School, Tufts University.

World’s first patient diagnosed with ‘climate change’ in Canada

News Desk — Tue, 09 Nov 2021 09:05:24 +0000

A doctor in the Canadian province of British Columbia labelled a patient with breathing problems as suffering from “climate change,” maybe the first such case ever documented.

The woman was having trouble breathing after the recent wildfires in the Kootenays aggravated her asthma, according to the Times Colonist newspaper in Canada. According to the BC Wildfire Service website, the Kootenays region in British Columbia has seen over 1,600 wildfires this fiscal year.

Dr. Kyle Merritt, who oversees the emergency room (ER) at Kootenay Lake Hospital, has seen multiple cases where the record heat has exacerbated pre-existing health conditions such as diabetes, heart failure, and so on. However, it is difficult to link mortality or serious disease to heatwaves or air pollution. Dr. Merritt sought out to other medical specialists in neighbouring provinces of Prince George, Kamloops, Vancouver, and Victoria to address the rising cases of heart disease, which he had only observed in medical school, according to the story.

Hundreds of people have died in a heatwave that has broken Canadian heat records, including an all-time high of 49.6 degrees Celsius in Lytton, British Columbia, on June 29.

When asked why he made the unexpected diagnosis, Dr. Merritt is quoted in the article as saying: “If we’re not looking at the underlying cause, and we’re just treating the symptoms, we’re just gonna keep falling further and further behind.” The three weeks of summer, when the COVID-19 pandemic, the heatwave, wildfires, and air pollution all collided, were exceptionally tough, according to the father of three.

US Intelligence report names India and Pakistan among 11 “countries of concern” due to climate change

Cheryll Jain — Sat, 23 Oct 2021 05:44:01 +0000

A report released by the National Intelligence Council in the US has named India, Pakistan and Afghanistan in the list of 11 countries that are highly vulnerable in their capacities to adequately respond to the environmental and societal crises resulting due to climate change.

Besides India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, the list includes countries such as Myanmar, Iraq, North Korea, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua and Colombia. These 11 countries have been termed as “countries of concern” in light of their inadequate planning and infrastructure to battle the ramifications of the climate crisis.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, in the report, has also predicted that the threat to US’ national security will be heightened in the next decades due to the geopolitical tensions arising from the hurdles that global warming presents.

Predicting the reason for concern that surrounds these countries, the report attributes the situation of heat, drought and inefficient government in Afghanistan as a marker of worry. Meanwhile, in India and other regions of South Asia where the countries are facing acute water shortage, disputes related to water will become a cause for growing geopolitical standoffs.

The report also sheds light on the role of China and India in determining the course of climate change over the next years as global temperatures rise due to the rapid expansion of industries and population in the countries. Currently, China and India are the world’s fourth and fifth largest emitters of greenhouse gasses. Both the countries are increasing their overall and per capita emissions, the report stated.

On the other hand, the US and the European Union, which have been the second and third largest emitters of greenhouse gasses contributing to global warming, are taking measures to reduce their emissions.

The report published by the US National Intelligence Council ahead of the COP26 climate change summit in Glasgow also pointed out that climate change will likely increase the political, geological and social instability in Central Africa and small island nations in the Pacific, making the regions some of the most endangered areas around the globe.

The United States and the European Union plans on striking a deal to control methane emissions

News Desk — Tue, 14 Sep 2021 05:22:59 +0000

The United States and the European Union have planned to the emission of the planet and warming gas methane all over the end of this decade and are working on other important economies to connect, according to the reports by Reuters.

Impact on the energy, agriculture, and waste industries which is responsible for the bulk of methane emissions could have a notable mark as Washington and Brussels agreement comes on the lookout to stimulate other important economies in front of a world summit to address climate change in Glasgow, Scotland in November. After carbon dioxide (CO2), greenhouse gas methane is the biggest cause of climate change and as the government is looking out for solutions to control global warming to 1.5 degrees it is going to cover more research work.

A joint agreement will be made by the United States and the EU later this week to control human-caused methane emissions by at least 30 percent by 2030, comparing with the 2020 level, as per a draft seen by Reuters. The draft says, “The short atmospheric lifetime of methane means that taking action now can rapidly reduce the rate of global warming.”

The United States and the EU will select over two dozen countries, which include countries like, China, Russia, India, Brazil, and Saudi Arabia, as well as others including Norway, Qatar, Britain, New Zealand, and South Africa to join the pledge. The draft also says, that due to propose laws the methane emissions, including leaky oil and gas infrastructure, old coal mines, agriculture, and waste such as landfills the United States and EU both are to restrict methane emissions key sources would be covered by the US-EU agreement.

Domestic action would be taken by the countries who will join the agreement to altogether achieve target methane cut, “focusing on standards to achieve all feasible reductions in the energy and waste sectors” and reducing agricultural emissions through “technology innovation as well as incentives and partnerships with farmers,” said the draft.

US Climate Envoy, John Kerry will travel to India for global climate ambition

News Desk — Sat, 11 Sep 2021 08:02:57 +0000

John Kerry the US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate to travel to India from Sept. 12-14 “to discuss efforts to elevate global climate ambition and to pace India’s clean energy transition,” the State Department stated on Friday. On his visit, Kerry will meet with his counterparts withinside the Indian authorities and private sector leaders, the department stated in a statement.

Kerry is laying the foundational work for US participation in the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties, or COP26, which will be held in Glasgow on Oct. 31-Nov 12. He also travelled to Japan last week and China for talks with officials.

In April, Kerry spoke with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi about how the USA could assist mobilize finance to lessen the dangers in generating opportunity power withinside the combat towards global warming. India is the world’s third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases after China and the USA, albeit with far lower emissions per capita than those countries.

Global Warming takes away 750 sq km of Glaciers from Iceland over 20 years: Study

Aryan Jakhar — Tue, 01 Jun 2021 07:38:48 +0000

Iceland’s glaciers have lost around 750 square kilometres (290 square miles), or seven per cent of their surface, since the turn of the millennium due to global warming, a study published on Monday showed. The glaciers, which cover more than 10 per cent of the country’s landmass, shrank in 2019 to 10,400 square kilometres, the study in the Icelandic scientific journal Jokull said. Since 1890, the land covered by glaciers has decreased by almost 2,200 square kilometres or 18 per cent.

But almost a third of this decline has occurred since 2000, according to the recent calculations by glaciologists, geologists and geophysicists.

Experts have previously warned that Iceland’s glaciers are at risk of disappearing entirely by 2200.

The ice’s retreat over the past two decades is almost equivalent to the total surface area of Hofsjokull, Iceland’s third-biggest ice cap at 810 square kilometres.

“Glacier-area variations in Iceland since around 1890 show a clear response to variations in climate,” the authors of the study wrote.

“They have been rather synchronous over the country, although surges and subglacial volcanic activity influence the position of some glacier margins,” they added.

In 2014, glaciologists stripped the Okjokull glacier of its status as a glacier, a first for Iceland, after determining that it was made up of dead ice and was no longer moving as glaciers do.

Nearly all of the world’s 220,000 glaciers are losing mass at an ever-increasing pace, contributing to more than a fifth of global sea-level rise this century, according to a study published in Nature in April.

Analysing images taken by NASA’s Terra satellite, they found that between 2000-2019, the world’s glaciers lost an average of 267 billion tonnes of ice each year.

The team also found that the rate of glacier melt had accelerated sharply during the same period.

Between 2000 and 2004, glaciers lost 227 billion tonnes of ice per year. But between 2015-2019, they lost an average of 298 billion tonnes each year.

The findings will be included in a forthcoming assessment report from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change due in 2022.

Greta Thunberg to skip UN climate Summit over uneven distribution of Covid-19 vaccine amongst countries

Shreejit Shelar — Fri, 09 Apr 2021 17:02:21 +0000

Swedish Climate activist Greta Thunberg, on Friday – confirmed to skip the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow this November, over concerns that inequality of access to Covid-19 vaccines will leave many countries unable to participate on even terms.

The 18-year-old activist maintained that by November richer countries would be vaccinating young healthy people “very often at the expense of people in risk groups in other parts of the world.”

“Of course I would love to attend the Glasgow #COP26 But not unless everyone can take part on the same terms. Right now many countries are vaccinating healthy young people, often at the expense of risk groups and front line workers (mainly from global south, as usual…)”, Greta Thunberg wrote in a tweet on Friday, confirming a BBC report.

Of course I would love to attend the Glasgow #COP26
But not unless everyone can take part on the same terms. Right now many countries are vaccinating healthy young people, often at the expense of risk groups and front line workers (mainly from global south, as usual…).
Thread-> https://t.co/pr1u7TeZxn

— Greta Thunberg (@GretaThunberg) April 9, 2021

“If people can’t be vaccinated and travel to be represented equally, that’s undemocratic and would worsen the problem”, she further added in a series of tweets on Friday.

Thunberg added that ‘Vaccine nationalism’ won’t solve the pandemic. “Global problems need global solutions”, asserted the Swedish activist.

Inequality and climate injustice is already the heart of the climate crisis. If people can’t be vaccinated and travel to be represented equally that’s undemocratic and would worsen the problem.
Vaccine nationalism won’t solve the pandemic. Global problems need global solutions.->

— Greta Thunberg (@GretaThunberg) April 9, 2021

Thunberg shot to fame in 2018 by campaigning against climate change at the age of 15. She began a solitary protest against global warming outside the Swedish parliament in Stockholm. She has skipped her Friday school classes, demanding the government to take action on climate change.

Within months, more than two million students in 135 countries had set up their own picket lines, joining Thunberg’s “School strike for the climate” campaign.

Since postponing the conference does not seem to be a viable option, Greta pointed out that “urgent action required”. She also asserted that the world doesn’t have to wait for conferences or anyone else to dramatically start reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

“But if current trends continue and the #cop26 has to be delayed that doesn’t mean we have to delay the urgent action required. We don’t have to wait for conferences nor anyone or anything else to dramatically start reducing our emissions. Solidarity and action can start today”, Greta Thunberg wrote in a tweet.

“And a digital solution is of course far from optimal. High speed internet connection and access to computers is extremely unequal in the world. In that case we would lack representation from those whose voices need to be heard the most when it comes to the climate crisis”, the 18-year-old activist added.

And a digital solution is of course far from optimal. High speed internet connection and access to computers is extremely unequal in the world.
In that case we would lack representation from those whose voices need to be heard the most when it comes to the climate crisis.

— Greta Thunberg (@GretaThunberg) April 9, 2021

The conference has already been postponed once as it was originally planned for November 2020. However, the campaigner said she did not rule out reversing her decision if vaccine access improved.

Global Central Banks criticized for ‘risky gamble’ on climate risks

Chirag Jha — Mon, 15 Feb 2021 05:56:00 +0000

Climate activists are warning that central banks are playing a “risky gamble” with their strategies for addressing the financial risks from global warming.

According to a study by Oil Change International and Reclaim Finance, “The scenarios being used to guide the transition to a carbon-neutral economy are biased toward temperatures that are too high and fossil-fuel phase-outs that are too slow.”

Such downplaying of the speed and depth of the necessary energy shift risks perpetuating the status quo for use of fossil fuels, the lobby groups said Monday.

The warning is based on scenarios by the Network for Greening the Financial System, a group of 83 central banks and supervisors from around the world. In a paper published last June, the NGFS focused its analysis on limiting temperature increases to 2 degrees Celsius compared to the pre-industrial age.

The Paris Agreement, the international treaty on combating climate change, calls on nations to hold the global average temperature increase to “well below 2 degrees” and preferably 1.5 degrees. The NGFS includes 1.5 degrees only as an “alternate” scenario.

The presidency of the COP26 climate summit — to be held in Glasgow, Scotland, in November — already declared embedding the NGFS analysis in the financial sector as one of its goals.

2020 & 2016 tagged as warmest years on record, NASA releases video

Devanshu Singla — Wed, 20 Jan 2021 07:17:32 +0000

In a new video released on Thursday, NASA announced that 2020 & 2016 were the warmest years on record. Importantly, the science agency highlighted this warming is part of a stark trend, largely caused by heat-trapping greenhouse gases amassing in the atmosphere.’

“The last decade was the warmest decade on record,” said NASA. The agency’s modern temperature records go back well over a century, to 1880. And in the last forty years, Earth’s temperature rise has been accelerating.

2020’s record fire seasons and plummeting Arctic sea ice are likely consequences of human-caused climate change, the agency said.

Earth’s global surface temperature in 2019 was the second warmest since modern record-keeping began in 1880 and 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit (0.98 degrees Celsius) warmer than 1951 to 1980 mean, according to an analysis by NASA.

Globally, the average temperature was second only to that of 2016 and continued the planet’s long-term warming trend: the past five years have been the warmest of the last 140 years.

“The last seven years have been the warmest seven years on record, typifying the ongoing and dramatic warming trend,” said NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies GISS Director Gavin Schmidt. “Whether one year is a record or not is not really that important – the important things are long-term trends. With these trends, and as the human impact on the climate increases, we have to expect that records will continue to be broken.”

Rising temperatures are causing phenomena such as loss of sea ice and ice sheet mass, sea-level rise, longer and more intense heatwaves, and shifts in plant and animal habitats. Understanding such long-term climate trends is essential for the safety and quality of human life, allowing humans to adapt to the changing environment in ways such as planting different crops, managing our water resources and preparing for extreme weather events said agency.

India can become a true global superpower in fight against climate change, says UN Secretary-General

News Desk — Fri, 28 Aug 2020 05:57:48 +0000

India has a “crucial role” to play in promoting clean energy as the world attempts to recover from the Coronavirus outbreak, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said.

Delivering the 19th Darbari Seth Memorial Lecture, the UN chief called on the South Asian nation to take the lead in transforming global economic, energy and health systems in order to create inclusive economies, save lives and avert the threat of climate change.

“India can become a true global superpower in the fight against climate change if it speeds up its shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy,” he stated.

With the COVID-19 pandemic putting sustainable development at risk, Mr Guterres outlined how adopting clean energy could benefit millions worldwide.